To travel you do not have to wait for the time you go on vacation. Even on a workweek, there is a time for a trip. To diversify your weekends and to get new impressions and emotions you can make a fantastic trip embracing our programme "short breaks".

Take your friends or family, choose up to three cities you want to visit and make a fabulous journey. In this weekend tour, you can stay for a one or two nights in the places you have chosen. You can be on excursions exploring and admiring the cities during the whole day and enjoy breathtaking views of the places recollecting bright moments of your trip at night. From dawn till night you will be able to see how the cities and everything around you change. Morning day will present the architecture and the landscape in sunlight glory while night will show transformed buildings and streets sinking in illumination.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to souvenirs from Russia? Of course, it is matryoshka, balalaika, vodka and caviar. Oh, and a hat with ear flaps as well! However, the ear flap hat is now in vogue, and has ceased to be such a rarity, vodka can be bought almost anywhere in the world.

Numerous souvenir shops are vying to sell magnets, mugs and T-shirts with slogans and thematic images (flag and coat of arms of Russia, funny sayings, bears, portraits of politicians and well-known writers), sailor's striped vests, as well as handicrafts. Khokhloma, Gzhel, enamel, birch amulets and Vologda lacework… the assortment is huge! But when you make purchases, don’t lower your guard.
Some unscrupulous sellers may try to sell you cheaper and substandard imitations. Of course, most of the shops have certificates for their goods and buy them directly from factories and workshops.
To help you not to get lost in all this colorful variety and tell how and where it is better to buy particular products, we have prepared separate articles for you on Russian folk crafts.

It makes sense to look for more valuable and rare souvenirs in antique shops.
Old coins, porcelain figurines of the Soviet era, icons, clocks, badges, decorations - one does not know where to look first!
But even here there are potential pitfalls. Apart from the fact that the seller may seriously inflate the price of what you want to buy, arguing that it is older or more valuable than it really is, there may be problems taking it out of the country.

As of today, it is prohibited to take any items of cultural value (books, figurines, icons, pictures, etc.), created prior to January 1, 1964 out of the country.

Important note: items of cultural value do not include cultural goods of serial and mass production, or modern souvenirs.

However, sometimes even an item of mass production manufactured over fifty years ago may attract the close attention of the customs service. If you want to protect yourself from unforeseen delays and undesired proceedings (the item is likely to stay with you, which, alas, cannot be said of your nerve cells), you can send the purchase to your own address by mail, after packing it carefully to avoid damage. Make sure that the package has a warning sign if the item is fragile.

Are you a little confused with all this information? Our team members are always ready to help you navigate all the rules, addresses, products and prices!

You will definitely find something to your liking and within your budget with all the variety of great Russian souvenirs!

Ivanovo

"Textile Capital", "City of Brides", "Calico Land". These are different names for the small city of Ivanovo, one of the cities in the Golden Ring of Russia. It is the youngest city in the ring. Ivanovo celebrated its 145th birthday this year. The city is situated in the central part of the country on the river Uvod, three hundred kilometers from Moscow.

Where Ivanovo now stands there used to be two settlements - Ivanovo village on the right side of the river, and Voznesenskoye village on the left. Later those villages formed a city where Russia's first printed cotton and linen production immediately started. By the early nineteenth century Ivanovo already held more than a hundred factories! The factories’ goods were so outstanding that the local textiles were in demand not just domestically, but also from abroad. For example, Ivanovo cotton was rather popular in England. It should be noted that Ivanovo still remains the center of the textile industry in Russia.

It is not difficult to guess that one of the stops on the excursion is the Calico Museum. You will learn how the textile industry emerged and developed in Ivanovo, examine the samples of some ancient textiles, and see the English looms of the nineteenth century.

Most of the cities of the Golden Ring are rich in religious sites. Unfortunately, a significant portion of Ivanovo’s churches were destroyed after the 1917 October Revolution. Among the remaining temples we highlight the Vvedensky convent. It was built not too long ago alongside the Vvedensky temple, which for a long time served as the archives for the local KGB representatives. Now the convent is actively involved in charity work.

The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the only wooden church in Ivanovo. During its life the temple has suffered a lot of difficulties, and miraculously survived the Second World War. Here you can admire a collection of the most beautiful icons.

One can often see the house-ship and the house-horseshoe in tourists’ photos taken in Ivanovo. The former forms the shape of a ship, and the latter resembles a horseshoe.

The houses were built in the 1930s and belong to the era of constructivism. The main features of this style are the exactness, sharp forms, and sturdiness.

The oldest brick building in Ivanovo, and also one of its symbols - is Schudrovskaya Palatka.

Palatka was built in the late seventeenth century, long before the city emerged. It was a repository of sovereign certificates, credit and debit books, and the village of Ivanovo was governed from there.

The tourist infrastructure in Ivanovo is developing rapidly. New hotels, entertainment centers, cafes, and restaurants open every year. With just a pocket guide you will find places to rest or a good coffee shop with ease. It’s very convenient to travel around the Golden Ring with a tour package, because you will not have to look for a place to stay. The organizers of the trip will take care of it in advance.

Ivanovo is rich not only in industrial facilities, but also in cultural events. Namely, in late May the city hosts the Zerkalo Film Festival named after the Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky . June is marked by the Antifabrika rock festival. The annual military event, The Open Sky, starts in August. It includes the performance of airborne troops, a military hardware show, and much more.

In the city of Ples, not far from the Oblast’s capital, the fashion festival "Ples on the Volga. Flax Palette” has become a tradition.

You will be surely be interested in the area surrounding Ivanovo, like the museum town Ples, which is situated on the banks of the Volga River. You may want to stay here for more than a day, because there are plenty of attractions in this small, green town. In Ples you will find various memorials and monuments, the house-museum of the Russian painter Isaac Levitan, several temples, and much more.

The villages of Palekh and Kholui are the centers of icon painting and lacquer miniatures. They are active museums and artists' studios.

Ivanovo is unlike any other city in the Golden Ring. It is unique, distinct, and never fails to elicit positive emotions. And yet it is still called the city of brides in Russia. This is because the textile factories originally employed mainly women. The demographic imbalance increased even more after World War II, when a substantial part of the male population did not return home. Today the Ivanovo region continues to rank first in terms of the disproportion between women and men.